July Tweets of the Month

 

• While is one of our most nimble, yet undefined words. You can be a good while, but not a bad one. You can take a while, but you cannot give one. I've never encountered a nice while but our days are strewn with meanwhiles that aren't mean at all. Idlers like me can while away the hours but we can't while them back. The definition is hard to pin down. It should come as no surprise: Turns out while is wily.

• It roams the scenic countryside at leisure. It foregoes reliable sustenance in favor of a roll-the-dice existence. Its sole function is to keep itself energized enough to scavenge another day. God help me, I have the brain of a free-range chicken. And that I take the time to reason out how my brain is like that of a free-range chicken is ample evidence that I have the brain of a free-range chicken.

• I remain confounded by how so many Americans allow themselves to be roiled by petty division. We all love America.And at one time or another, regardless of party affiliation, every man, woman and child has stood up and declared themselves to be John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt.

• Before the great thinning, I used to be vain about my hair. Then for a while I was proud of my broad shoulders and trim waist. Then there were days I’d fancy that women admired the firmness of my dancer’s butt. Much has changed. It dawned on me the other day, the element of me I most want people to notice is that I wear nice shoes. Sad, isn’t it? What was once the whole package is now embarrassed about everything ‘cept what’s below the ankles.

• There ought to be an award show celebrating candy-covered chocolates if for no other reason we could look forward to promos announcing, "It's once again time for the M&Memmies!"

• For many humans, there is no other condition that suffers as precipitous a drop in value as that of our virginity. Its possessor spends years guarding it, preserving it, taking pride in maintaining it. Then one maybe drunken night the virginity is lost. No one looks for it. You never hear of sone finding a huge pile of lost virginity and hauling it down to the pawn shop to swap for, say an old guitar. 

• I’m aware we live in a time many prepper parents teaching kids how to kill, segregate, and how to look out for #1 for when the world goes to Hell. They fail to realize that if it wasn’t for parents teaching our children to think, share, be kind and work together to solve big problems Hell would already be here.

• Told friend a new acquaintance could be described with what’s becoming my least favorite word: He’s “very Conservative.” Oh, he said, you dislike Conservatives. I told him I’m fine with Conservatives. And I’m fine with Liberals. It’s the verys that scare me. 

• Nutritionists ought to have a term for the unnecessary fats we foolishly add to our diets when we kill off the last slice of pizza so we can’t eat it later cause we know it could kill us and the term ought to be “kamikaze calories.”

• It’s a running joke that it'll never happen, but Keith Richards will one day die. My fear is on that day I'll not only struggle to mourn Keith, but will also have to deal with the news that my favorite band will henceforth be known as "Mick Jagger & The Mick Jagger Orchestra."

• Having access to thousands of streaming channels makes me feel like a Sultan with a harem with dozens of nubile women. It's  excessive. Many of the offerings are  mediocre. Wouldn't I be better off with that one special channel? Okay, four or five might be agreeable, but that’s just the Sultan in me talkin’.

• Today is July 9, 2020. It is a day some men and women will remember with great honor and affection. For today, women will deliver children and men will become fathers. Someone today will learn that they’ve beaten cancer. And we may not know it for years but someone somewhere today will achieve — Eureka! — the breakthrough that will unshackle us from our unsustainable reliance on fossil fuels. Me? I’ll fart around the office until about 4 o’clock when I can head down to the bar without risking scandal. Oh, and I’ll Wordle. 

• Reports that 43,591 women elected to have some breast reduction procedure, while 301,599 sought  (breast enhancement). Being a proponent of efficiency I have to wonder if someday the market may respond with some sort of swap along the lines of "Need-A--Penny/Take-A-Penny …"

• With my new book I set out to write something that would withstand the test of time. I vowed to work like a maniac until the final draft shown for submission. But then with war/pandemic/Global warming/etc., I realized our time may soon be up. So I'd work till lunch then shoot pool.

• After spending yet another hour in the gym this morning I've concluded there is a multi-million dollar industry staffed by men and women whose sole purpose in life is to produce song-after-song-after-song they know I'll find revolting.

• If I ruled the squirrel Kingdom, I would have universal mandatory class 7 times daily, every day, and the lesson would never vary: "Remember, it's never a good idea to pause in the middle of a busy hiway to engage an oncoming driver in a staring contest.”

• Climate change alarmists fret heatwave is causing the roads to melt. I told them  the roads in France are melting because they're  made of ice cream! Then I did a little research and learned French do NOT make their roads out of ice cream. They make them out of … road! Uh oh …

• I think one of the problems of combatting Climate Change is our focus on global warming. Yes, the earth is too hot, but the sun is way, way hotter. I propose we fight global warming with solar cooling. How much ice would we need to dump on the sun to lower it, say, 5 degrees?

My thoughts on Tin Lizzy bartender search

 (554 words)

The Tin Lizzy is looking for a new bartender. Recent bartenders have moved on, are seeking greener pastures or, sadly, been summoned to that Great Last Call in the sky. 

So they are advertising for a new bartender to run Flappers.

Frankly, I’d rather they look for an old bartender.

My preference has nothing to do with age and everything to do with attitude.

New bartenders muddle organic drink ingredients. Old bartenders muddle drinkers’ brains. 

A good bartender makes the drink, sets it down and moves on without comment to the next thirsty customer.

The upscale cocktail trend has new bartenders taking forever to construct complicated drinks. Then they just stand there and wait to bask in customer ovations in appreciation of their drink-making skills. 

It has me nostalgic for the bartender we all called “Angry Bill.” Note: The nickname was not a result of subtle irony. This was not a case of calling the fat guy “Slim.”

No, Angry Bill was ornery, hot-tempered, thin-skinned, homophobic, xenophobic and although I’ve never used nor heard the term before, Angry Bill was customer-ophobic.

He showed up incensed at having to schlep drinks and his anger only deepened when drinkers showed up expecting a good time. 

A typical greeting was, “Hello, Dickhead. Don’t plan on staying long. We’re closing in 45 minutes then you can go home and do your wife a favor and screw your poodle.”

The only time I’d see him approach gleefulness was when one of his luckless patrons either lost big on a bet, got publicly embarrassed by an ex-wife or he overheard anyone expressing a kind sentiment that opened the door for him to interrupt with a “Brokeback Mountain” joke. 

He was one of my all-time favorite bartenders because after spending an hour or two with someone so misanthropic, so antithetical to our common humanity, I’d toddle out of the bar feeling better about myself.

If I could get along with Angry Bill — and I truly did — it meant there was hope for liberals and conservatives, Jews and  Arabs, Pirate fans and Pirate owner Bob Nutting.

I know. That third one is a gross exaggeration of a preposterous impossibility.

New bartenders labor under the delusion that it is their job to make people happy.

Wrong!

It is their job to make people forget just how unhappy they are.

The new bartender encourages drinkers to rejoice, make merry, to opine and banter.

The only time an old bartender wants customers to open their mouths is when they’re sucking down hootch.

For example, I remember the time when a trio of younger drinkers came into the bar during Angry Bill’s afternoon shift and proceeded to begin ordering labor-intensive drinks and laughing uproariously like the good times were never going to end.

To their credit, they realized they were out-of-place, that their raucous behavior was ill-suited to a tavern where the regulars mostly kept to themselves and the only sound was that of arteries hardening. 

The ring leader summoned Bill over and asked, “Is there somewhere we can sit where we won’t bother your regulars?”

It was like Bill had been waiting all his life for that question from these guys.

“Racers,” he said.

Racers is a  competing bar that’s about a half-mile down the road.

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